Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian received the Get With The Guidelines®–Heart Failure Gold Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that Hoag has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent compliance for at least 24 months to core standard levels of care outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations.Under Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure, heart failure patients are started on aggressive risk reduction therapies, alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling, and referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged.

"The full implementation of national heart failure guideline recommended care is a critical step in preventing recurrent hospitalizations and prolonging the lives of heart failure patients,” said Lee H. Schwamm, M.D., chair of the Get With The Guidelines National Steering Committee and director of the TeleStroke and Acute Stroke Services at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass. “The goal of the American Heart Association’s Get With The Guidelines program is to help hospitals like Hoag implement appropriate evidence-based care and protocols that will reduce disability and the number of deaths in these patients.”

Get With The Guidelines–Heart Failure helps Hoag’s staff develop and implement acute and secondary prevention guideline processes that enable Hoag to improve the quality of care it provides heart failure patients, save lives and reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks. ?